Refurb of 7.62 Range Rifle No4Mk1/3

[Claven2]

Looking good

[tbonesmith]

I finished the fitting finally and added the pegs. There will be a little final shaping around the top when the glue for the pegs go off. The gap from the butt to the wrist was slightly uneven, so I make a safe edge hacksaw blade by grinding the kerf off one side and was able to use this to make the gap a nice even 1.5mm or so.
Happy to be out of this one! Hope it doesn't break...
I started shaping the patch to the trigger guard and noticed an embarassing mistake, I should have run the patch back another 5-8 mm. I couldn't face redoing it, so I put some extra little bits in to fill in the voids that would have been visible. With any luck they will be pretty tidy.

[xa-coupe]

impressive work, way out of my league !

[tbonesmith]

Tonight, I shaped the trigger guard repair, removed the devcon bedding, patched the knox, and fitted a patch to the area above the kingscrew where there was a small steel plate. And finished the butt repair.
So i should be able to stock up the forend soon, and then I can patch and fit up the top guard... Anyway getting closer to going concern.
Pretty happy with the progress so far.

[tbonesmith]

I always feel happy when I do a little job I've been avoiding because it's difficult! Anyway tonight I got over a little hump, and the rifle is starting to take shape. I've got the bedding pretty close to where it wants to be. I just need to relieve the reinforce a bit more until the flat of the receiver bottom bears firmly at the front, as well as the knox.
I'll probably have to take a little more out of the cutout at the front of the forend as it's a bit shallow. We'll see.
I got the braised on steel bit off the trigger guard, and that looks completely servicable, and I've inletted for it to fit.
Everything needs a bit of work to tidy it up, but it's close.
And when I've got a stocked up forend and a butt that fits, I can test it out for function, which tends to hurry me up.
Anyway here are a few of tonights pics:

[gunner]

Great work! I´m restoring a No.4 MK.I at time but i´m sure yours will look much better!

[tbonesmith]

All right, so I finished bedding the forend, which was easier said than done, I had to repatch the draws another 2 times, as the barrel kept hanging over to the right, and for the life of me I couldn't correct it, turned out there was a tiny dag of glue inside the hole for the spiggot where the front action screw comes up. Anyway I got rid of that, and then the bedding was possible. I know the draws are not fully bearing but they're tight as you like and bearing pretty close to fully, and I thought I'd leave well enough alone. The bedding feels perfect, barrel is central, floating fwd of the knox, and returns HARD when pushed around at all.
Trigger guard fits well.
I relieved the rear guard to not touch the barrel, and used bearing blue to pick up and relieve the contact points.
The the hard part. I determined how I 'd fit the front band first, a bit higher than originally (1mm or so) then relieved the area extending back into the underside of the guard, and fitted a tennon to the scallop. Think half lap joint on a concave tapering component, 5mm-2mm thick, I was very happy to not have had a disaster thus far.
Glued up in epoxy and clamped. I'll shape it when cured, and fit the band, doing my best to leave as much timber on the cutout as possible(so the band doesn't crush it when done up).
I also found a nice piece of tree to make the cheekpiece.
Pretty wordy, but there you go!
BTW, Having taken a peek with the butt on, and the guard, I think when this is finished, it'll be one mean looking, and awesome shooting rifle, I'm starting to get excited!
Please note, this repair has been done using the article: Milsurps - The fore-end and handguards of the L42 (by Peter Laidler) as a guide.

[tbonesmith]

Tonight I got the top guard fitted. I did fit the band very slightly higher in the timber to ensure enough meat was left in the top guard, relieved section to ensure it wouldn't collapse. The band securely holds the guard to the forend, just as the band tightens on the sling swivel, which was what I was going for. There is a neat 1mm or so of clearance all around the barrel, which I think is plenty when you feel how rigidly the barrel centres.
So that's pretty well the major wood work done. I'll patch a little spot on the forend, and plug the old rivet holes on the guard as well as an old screw hole on the bottom of the forend. Then it's for a thorough sand, wet, sand, and dunking in hot boiled linseed oil. Also I need to bore out a foresight block and solder it into place on the end of the barrel.
This all will happen before next weekend, because this rifle is coming to the range for some testing next Saturday!

[tbonesmith]

So I'm a bit slower than I hoped. Tonight I sanded the wood set with 120g, and did the final timber patch and plugged the 3 holes I wanted to get rid of. Used the forend scrap for the plugs, so colour should be good.
Happy that I can't feel any of the repairs, wood looks good after a 120 sand, just about all the defects are gone. Any there now will remain as I don't want to go too far and end up with a stock that looks mis-shapen, presently looks fine.
Will go 180, 240 tomorrow

[tbonesmith]

Nearly there.